Apple's spring forward goes back in time

Apple's "Spring Forward" event brought tantalizing teasers of tomorrow: A new MacBook, details on their world-changing wearable, amazing new touchpad technology, and a couple of laptops from 2013.

Now we bring you our findings on the last of these. Which is not to say the least of these. The construction of the MacBook Air 11" and MacBook Air 13" stay exactly the same, and upgradability could still be better (4 of 10 on the repair scale). However, the MacBook Air has always had a redeeming feature—one we worry is an endangered species at Apple: The non-adhered battery.

After Phil Schiller’s sneak peek into the new ultra-slim MacBook, we're pretty sure the adhered battery trend is likely to continue. We're happy the MacBook Air remains glue-free—a lone survivor among Apple portables—and we’re fearful for the future. Battery adhesive means repair, replacement, and recycling are much more difficult.

We don't have much to say about the MacBook Air refreshes—and we're okay with that. But we didn't want to leave you empty-handed, so we took it upon ourselves to liven up the routine 11" teardown with some Easter egg fun. Check it out!

Teardown Highlights:

The newest Airs keep their traditional model numbers, A1465 and A1466—the same digits we found on models dating as far back as mid 2012.

Broadwell shrinks the MacBook Air's previous architecture (Haswell)—meaning not a lot has changed performance-wise, but a new manufacturing process makes the transistors smaller, and the entire chip more power efficient by up to 30%.

We air the differences in these lightweight notebooks with a light touch.